The Windows 10 for mobile version 10586.11 is out and apparently it’s the RTM (Ready To Manufacture) release for the successor of Windows Phone 8.1. I happen to own a Motorola Moto G 4G and a Lumia 640, which share nearly identical hardware:

Qualcomm Snapdragon 400

Adreno 305

720p screen

This gives me a somewhat scientific opportunity to compare how do these devices, or their browsers, perform in terms of web browsing performance. Keep in mind that the whole software stack in between the hardware and the browser is different (Operating System, drivers, graphics architecture…), as the Moto G runs on Android 5.1 and the Lumia on Windows 10. But the end user doesn’t give a damn about that - all the user needs is snappy browser!

For the tests we used Google Octane and Jet Stream. We skipped visually intensive benchmarks like Peacekeeper and a few others, as they tend to misbehave on mobile screen. Tests were executed 3 times, with devices plugged in and screen lock timers disabled. The values are the averages of the three runs. Here are the results:

Note: Edge’s version number is tied to the Windows release (10586.11). Device UI does not provide an application level version information

Octane:

Edge (Windows 10): 2522

Firefox 42 (Android 5.1): 2384

Chrome 46 (Android 5.1): 2284

As we can see the Edge on Windows 10 is the winner here, with a narrow margin. Somewhat surprising is that Firefox beats Chrome on it’s home turf.

Jet Stream:

Firefox 42 (Android 5.1): 15.545

Chrome 46 (Android 5.1): 15.115

Edge (Windows 10): 14.919

Firefox continues to shine, but now Edge goes down to the third place, just slightly behind Chrome. But as with Octane it is a very tight race with close margins.

The results are not 100% conclusive, as there are other components in these devices (for exp. memory chips) that may have an impact to the result. Based on these numbers however, it is clear that Windows 10 Mobile and it’s Edge browser can deliver similar browsing performance than Android, on hardware that very similar in terms of technology and price point. Google is considered to be the leader when it comes to web technologies and browsers, but the numbers show that Microsoft and Mozilla are actually very competitive.

P.S. If someone has a Lumia 640 still running Windows Phone 8.1, I would love to see some Octane and Jet Stream results for Internet Explorer. Also the models 640XL, 730, 735 and 830 should be nearly identical in terms of hardware performance.